Field of the Invention
One or more embodiments of the invention are related to the field of exercise systems. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, one or more embodiments of the invention enable a high intensity preparation, physical exercise and recovery system configured to prepare muscles for workout through vibration, accept muscular input of high intensity, recover muscles through vibration. Embodiments provide an exercise system that enables a user to obtain a high intensity workout in a small amount of time, for example 15 minutes, and yet increase the user's metabolic rate for hours. Embodiments of the invention may further perform an initial and/or ongoing analysis in terms of body composition analysis and/or extremity composition analysis in order to target particular muscles, fat and/or skeletal areas, optionally calculate a score based thereon, and target the high intensity exercise based on the body composition analysis and/or extremity composition analysis and/or score. In one or more embodiments the system may provide outputs including suggested alterations in physical activity and/or food to consume in order to achieve targeted goals for example as compared to the user's trends of change over time, or in comparison to other user's trends down to the granularity of extremities and not just overall body metrics.
Description of the Related Art
Physical exercise as referred to herein relates to wellness and fitness related activity undertaken by the human body. There are many types of exercise that may be broadly categorized by the type of motion and speed at which the motion is undertaken. One taxonomy of exercise includes aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise and stretching. Aerobic exercising includes activities such as walking, running, biking, for example. Anaerobic exercise includes activities such as lifting weights, interval training and other such activities that utilize more oxygen than can be obtained during the exercise. Stretching related exercises generally are activities that improve the range of motion for various body parts. Regardless of the type of exercise, physical movement is generally acknowledged as an important factor for the physical and mental well being of individuals.
In the agricultural world of old, a large percentage of the population was involved with manual labor on farms for example and hence undertook physical activity on a daily basis in order to earn their livelihood. Obesity was rare, and in addition, the diets of the population included less saturated fat and did not include pesticides or other chemical post processing that is now commonly added to foods to increase sugar, salt and fat content, to increase sales of food. Preservatives were generally unknown at the time, notwithstanding salt drying. The advent of highly efficient farm machinery and industrial jobs that do not require significant manual labor have changed the amount of physical activity that a large percentage of the population achieves. Based on the type food that is currently consumed in the industrialized world and based on the general lack of physical activity, it is predicted that many of the world's children in industrialized nations will succumb to diabetes and other diseases related to inactivity and poor diet. In addition, a large percentage of the adult population work long hours in sedentary jobs and do not allocate a significant amount of time to exercise based on their careers and social obligations. People that do exercise currently require a significant amount of time to achieve a particular level of work effort based on the types of exercise apparatus that are common.
Specifically, apparatus have been developed over the years to enable individuals to move particular body parts to obtain physical exercise and to otherwise counteract the inactivity common in modern industrial life. For example, some people exercise to obtain physical activity to maintain their health, ironically, performing physical activity that used to be obtained through manual labor that people no longer achieve on a large-scale basis in their jobs. Current solutions for exercise generally include a multitude of different types of apparatus designed to exercise one or more body parts. Most apparatus enable exercise of one body part at a time, for example bench press or stationary bicycle to exercise and otherwise “isolate” the chest or legs respectively.
Another type of exercise apparatus includes a vibration apparatus utilized by a Russian scientist to improve the strength and flexibility of athletes in Russia in the 1960's. Modern variations include platforms that a user stands on to in effect perform strength training with their own body weight. Long term use of vibration platforms has not been shown to increase strength relative to static strength exercises as per the placebo-controlled paper of Delecluse et al. (2003), “Strength increase after whole-body vibration compared with resistance training”, Medicine and science in sports and exercise 35 (6): 1033-41. Hence in general, vibration platforms have been mainly utilized for low stress exercise and for elderly patients that have been bedridden or who experienced bone loss. In general, vibration based exercise alone requires as much time as convention exercise such as walking or other physical activities for example to achieve a particular benefit level.
Other types of exercise apparatus have been designed for rapid workouts, notably the “Range of Motion” machine, or “ROM” machine. This type of machine enables a quick workout but does not prepare the muscles for the workout and does not provide a mechanism for recovering muscles after the workout. Hence, this particular apparatus is another example of a standalone apparatus that fails to address the entire workout process as a whole.
To the point, the main problem with known exercise apparatus is that in general they are utilized in a standalone manner in a time ordered fashion, and not combined in an intelligent manner into a system that prepares a user for high intensity exercise, enables the high intensity exercise and recovers the user's muscles after the high intensity exercise. In addition, known systems do not include accurate analysis capabilities to measure the skeletal muscle mass, percentage of body fat or fat an lean portions of extremities to enable a system to provide recommendations for alterations to high intensity exercise to minimize exercise time and to target particular body parts or extremities that are not within a desired threshold for muscle or to provide recommendations for particular foods to consume to reach target goals. For at least the limitations described above there is a need for a high intensity preparation, physical exercise and recovery system.